Tag:

Dark

Midnight and Webisoft to Build Privacy-Focused Dark Pool DEX

by admin September 7, 2025

Midnight has partnered with Webisoft to launch a decentralized dark pool trading platform built for institutional investors. The platform will operate on the Midnight network and use advanced zero-knowledge (ZK) proof technology to keep trades completely private.

Midnight confirmed the update on X, “Midnight Webisoft is joining forces with the midnight foundation to build an institutional-grade dark pool trading platform. This project will use Midnight’s privacy-enhancing technology to create a secure, fully anonymous decentralized exchange (DEX).”

Midnight 🤝 @webisoft_

Webisoft is joining forces with the @midnightfdn to build an institutional-grade dark pool trading platform. This project will use Midnight’s privacy-enhancing technology to create a secure, fully anonymous decentralized exchange (DEX).

The partnership… pic.twitter.com/zUDDrJeK1S

— Midnight (@MidnightNtwrk) September 5, 2025

The partnership solves a big problem for institutional finance in decentralized ecosystems: the necessity for privacy is at odds with the fact that public blockchains are open to everyone. It will also give developers access to a full set of DeFi tools.

Tackling Transparency Challenges in DeFi

As per the blog post, traditional decentralized exchanges reveal all buy and sell orders, exposing large trades to the market. Consequently, this transparency creates price slippage and inefficiencies when institutions execute big orders. A single trade can lead to panic or excitement, moving prices before transactions are complete.

Dark pools solve this issue by hiding trade intentions. Buyers and sellers match privately, and trades finalize at market-driven prices. This protects confidentiality until after execution, preventing disruption.

Both companies intend to bring the model to Web3, combining privacy with avant-garde DeFi capabilities. The platform will be based on Midnight’s Zswap protocol to ensure secure atomic settlements.

It will also feature a private matching engine using multi-party computation (MPC) and custom wallet support through MetaMask Snap. Moreover, developers will access open-source tools to build privacy-preserving applications on the network.

Rational Privacy for Regulatory Balance

The project builds on Midnight’s concept of rational privacy. As Midnight Foundation President Fahmi Syed stated, “Privacy is a fundamental human and digital right, yet in our current systems, users give everything away just to participate.”

The platform allows institutions to confirm trades by using ZK proofs without revealing any sensitive information. This method tackles regulatory issues and ensures that user privacy is upheld.

Syed also emphasized, “Traditional blockchains make every transaction permanent and public. That’s a barrier to real-world adoption.”

The roadmap has confidential asset management, MPC-powered matching, and audited security reports. All components will be released under an Apache 2.0 license, encouraging broad developer adoption.

This collaboration could accelerate institutional adoption of DeFi by delivering privacy, compliance, and scalability, bridging the gap between traditional finance and decentralized ecosystems.

Also Read: Solana Approves Alpenglow Upgrade to Boost Network Speed

Source link

September 7, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

Valor Mortis is more Dishonored than Dark Souls, but if anyone can pull off a hard-as-nails hybrid, it’s the Ghostrunner devs

by admin September 4, 2025

Here’s a bit of inside baseball: Gamescom is a busy show. More often than not, you’re booked back-to-back for hours on end, zipping from one appointment to the next in a flurry of interviews, previews, and meetings. I pack my schedule so tight I don’t stop for lunch, and playing just 30 minutes of a game at a time can spin you out a bit and make everything sort of blur into one. With all that in mind, I still couldn’t tear myself away from Valor Mortis – the hardcore first-person RPG from the Ghostrunner devs – when it was my final appointment of the day. I stayed at the demo station until I beat the boss. That, in an environment like Gamescom, is high praise indeed.

You awake in a mass grave with your sabre, a pistol, and magic powers infused into your palm a la Bioshock or Dishonored. From there, you have one task: survive. As much as I’m reticent to use the term ‘Soulslike’, you can’t hide from some of the genre trappings: you drop your currency on your gravesite when you die, you have a limited number of health recovery items you need to ration out, attacks come in light and heavy flavours, there’s a dedicated dodge button, and the bosses are sturdy bastards that have multiple health bars. Combat is crunchy and brutal, and if you want to come out on top, you’re probably going to have to learn how to parry effectively.

Manage cookie settings

But the Dark Souls comparison feels off. Aside from the most obvious thing – this is first-person, not third – the flow of combat feels more important here. Valor Mortis isn’t as much of an ‘immersive sim’ as Dishonored, but the perspective does a lot to evoke Arkane’s influential Bethesda debut. Maybe it’s in the spells you can bind to your right hand, maybe it’s in the dashing, jumping, and blade-plunging you can do that makes you feel more acrobatic than any Hunter or Chosen Undead in From’s catalogue, but Valor Mortis, for my money, is a game that rewards speed and aggression more than holding up a shield and ‘rolling around the big guy’.

The beating heart of Ghostrunner is still very much alive inside this ‘imsim’/Soulslike hybrid; it’s clear the game wants you to be deft and svelte as you tear through the muddy trenches of the Napoleonic frontline. You can see this focus on agility even in some of the mechanical choices that One More Level makes – blocking still causes you to take some damage, so parrying is the game’s preferred method of responding to threats. Some attacks are unblockable or can’t be parried, so dodging and then countering is prioritised. To be uncharitable, you could say it’s all one violent, trumped-up version of ‘rock, paper, scissors’, but that’s fine, because it all feels so damn good.

Not-so-standard bearer. | Image credit: One More Level

If there’s one standout thing about the Ghostrunner games, it’s the feel of GR-74 in your hands: the 74th Ghostrunner feels both dangerous and fairly fragile, making you a glass cannon blasting through the Dharma Tower. It’s a samurai/ninja fantasy, after all. Your avatar here, in 19th Century Europe, is William: more hardy than a cyborg ninja, but still just some guy when all’s said and done. Taking out possessed footsoldiers and mutated dogs in the blasted trenches is easy enough; learn to respond to their telegraphed attacks and how you can outrun them, and they become naught but feckless drones. It’s the bosses where Valor Mortis is going to shine, though, and that’s why I stayed past my allotted appointment time at One More Level’s booth. I needed to kill one.

As you’d expect, the first phase is simple enough. Use your pistol to target weak points, eat away at the stamina bar, stagger the hulking goliath, and dive in for a ‘poise attack’ that deals stupendous damage. Rinse, repeat, onto phase two. By the end of my session, I was clearing the first phase without even touching my potions – nice! – but the second phase is where things started to get muddy.

On your head be it. | Image credit: One More Level

An eruption of Cronenberg body horror and some vague dialogue about ‘power’ later, General Lothaire – or The Eagle Bearer, to use his military moniker – turned into a grafted beast akin to Elden Ring’s Godrick: multiple arms, all wielding flintlocks, a huge flagstaff he could bonk you across the arena with, and the ability to recall dead souls from the battlefield to complicate matters. One hit with his cutlass or flag, and you’d be down past half health. Oh crap. My offensive tactics from the first half of the battle became far more defensive, and I was on the back foot. Suddenly, I became keenly aware that I too had a stamina bar, and more often than not it was running on empty. Scrambling to find the right moments to gauge my attacks and respond to his onslaught was the name of the game here. It took me a good 10 deaths, but eventually I ripped the monster’s bones apart. Phew.

But my 30-minute slot was over. It had been for a while. Luckily, it was the end of the day and the only thing I was late for was a glass of kolsch and some aggressively-mid pork knuckle. But that desire – that need – to overcome this boss is emblematic of how Soulslike sickos will feel about this game when playing at home: it’s compelling, gratifying, and it will get its hooks into your brain and make you think ‘OK, I’m not putting this pad down until I’ve beaten this monster.’ One More Level, indeed.

Source link

September 4, 2025 0 comments

Gaming Gear

Upcoming PowerToys utility will finally let you set light and dark mode to cycle on a schedule in Windows 11

by admin September 4, 2025

I swear, sometimes the only thing that actually wakes me up in the morning—besides enough caffeine to kill a small horse—is the retina searing brightness of a rogue default theme, usually from that one app I keep meaning to switch to dark mode. Now an upcoming PowerToys utility means I won’t be jumpscared with a bright white blast to my eyeballs right before bed time.

For those unfamiliar, PowerToys is a Windows utility for those never content with a system default. Tucked away into the accompanying blog post for the PowerToys 0.94 update (via Windows Latest) is news of a feature in the works that will “automatically switch between light and dark mode based on your schedule.”

At present in Windows 11, you can select dark mode by ducking into settings, then looking under personalisation, and then colours. You can also pick a muted ‘accent’ colour to highlight certain features of the Windows UI—such as sliders and hyperlink text—without harshing the more sedate vibes of dark mode.

The rest of the recent 0.94 update focuses on quality of life updates, such as adding a search box into the PowerToys settings menu, plus a new gliding cursor mode that offers a little extra support for users who otherwise struggle to make rapid mouse movements and clicks precisely. Keyboard shortcuts also enjoy a tweak; rather than hitting a hotkey and being surprised when multiple things result from the same input, PowerToys now has a new tile that warns you of keyboard shortcut conflicts and also allows you to quickly reassign any doubled-up key combinations.

You can’t currently set your theming to change throughout the day in Windows 11, though that functionality is there for the Night light feature designed to reduce blue light intensity as ambient light levels drop. The PowerTools v0.95 update offering that feature should go live in October. As users have frequently requested this feature in the past (not to mention the fact a similar feature can already be found in macOS), there’s a good chance that the power users won’t be allowed to keep theme scheduling all to themselves forever.

And once we get themes that change based on the time of day, whose to say themes that change based on your location is out of the question either? Just think—dark mode for when you’re reading fanfic about your favourite blorbo at home, and then the normcore glow of day mode for when you’re in the office…though I’m not sure a shifting theme is what I’d personally consider a good enough reason to give up my location data.

Best gaming monitors 2025

All our current recommendations

Source link

September 4, 2025 0 comments

Game Reviews

Perfect Dark Was Almost Saved By A Last-Minute Deal With Take-Two

by admin September 3, 2025

Perfect Dark was one of the most anticipated blockbusters in the first-party Xbox portfolio when it was suddenly canceled earlier this summer amid mass cuts at Microsoft. Bloomberg now reports there was briefly an attempt to find the troubled game a new publisher so that it could still come out.

Unfortunately, those talks apparently fell through, at least in part due to disagreements over IP rights. The idea was that Embracer-owned Crystal Dynamics, which was co-developing the stealth shooter with now defunct Xbox studio The Initiative, would complete the project under a new publishing deal with Take-Two. The two companies reportedly came “close” to a deal but one of the things that ultimately sunk talks was disagreement over who would own the Perfect Dark franchise, which currently belongs to Microsoft, over the long term.

If Perfect Dark had been a success, the IP rights would have become way more valuable overnight with the potential for sequels or TV and movie adaptations. But for that to happen it would have had to come out. How much will the IP be worth with no new game in over 15 years?

This deal falling through is seemingly why Crystal Dynamics announced new layoffs last week. “This decision was not made lightly,” the studio posted on LinkedIn. “It was necessary, however, to ensure the long-term health of our studio and core creative priorities in a continually shifting market.”

Microsoft has found a way to give some of the casualties of its mass layoffs a second lease on life. Hi-Fi Rush maker Tango Gameworks briefly shutdown in 2024 before being resurrected later that year under South Korean publisher Krafton. It’s a shame the tech giant couldn’t find a way to make that happen for Perfect Dark, both for fans but most of all for the people who were working on it.

Source link

September 3, 2025 0 comments

Esports

Take-Two was reportedly in talks to fund and publish Perfect Dark reboot

by admin September 3, 2025

Take-Two Interactive was reportedly in talks to fund and publish The Initiative’s Perfect Dark reboot following the closure of the developer in July.

That’s according to Bloomberg, with sources telling the publication that the deal ultimately fell through resulting in layoffs at the game’s co-developer Crystal Dynamics last week.

Sources claimed that leadership from The Initiative and Crystal Dynamics spent two months in negotiations with “multiple parties” to find a new funding partner, resulting in a potential deal between Take-Two and Crystal Dynamic’s parent company Embracer.

However, the firms involved were “unable to come to terms over long-term ownership of the Perfect Dark franchise.”

Bloomberg reached out to representatives for Embracer, Xbox, and Take-Two, all of which declined to comment.

The Perfect Dark reboot was announced at The Game Awards in 2020, and was the first project of The Initiative – a first-party Xbox studio founded in 2018.

In 2023, it was reported that Perfect Dark was still in pre-production three years after its announcement.

The developer initially worked with support studio Certain Affinity to co-develop the game, with Crystal Dynamics taking over as a co-dev in 2021.

Crystal Dynamics was acquired by the Embracer Group, alongside Eidos Montreal and Square Enix Montreal, for $300 million.

Source link

September 3, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Report: Take-Two Interactive Was In Talks To Save Xbox’s Canceled Perfect Dark Reboot

by admin September 2, 2025

Take-Two Interactive Software, the publisher behind Ken Levine’s next game Judas, Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto series, and the upcoming Borderlands 4, was in talks to save the recently canceled Perfect Dark reboot, according to a new report from Bloomberg. While Crystal Dynamics owner Embracer Group was close to striking this deal with Take-Two, negotiations ultimately failed, leading to last week’s layoffs at Crystal Dynamics.

Bloomberg writes that Embracer “had come close to striking a deal” with Take-Two to purchase the game from Xbox, which owned the rights, but that discussions collapsed “at least in part because the companies involved were unable to come to terms over long-term ownership of the Perfect Dark franchise,” according to its sources.

Unfortunately, with layoffs at Crystal Dynamics and these negotiations ending, it seems the Perfect Dark reboot is officially dead.

Xbox and The Initiative, a new studio formed specifically for this game, revealed this Perfect Dark reboot in 2020. We learned The Initiative was teaming up with Tomb Raider series developer Crystal Dynamics in 2021, and a long three years later, in 2024, we got our first look at Perfect Dark gameplay.

That 2024 gameplay showing was the last we saw or heard about Perfect Dark before it was canceled in July.

[Source: Bloomberg]

Source link

September 2, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

28th August video games round-up: MGS Delta issues acknowledged by Konami and lay-offs after Perfect Dark

by admin August 31, 2025

Update: That was the world of video games today on 28th August. A full transcript of everything that occurred is available below if you wish to digest it at your leisure.

The week rolls on, like the wheels of a skateboard, and we’re back with another daily report, gathering today’s news and features in one place. A place we can talk together, like a community, in real-time. Imagine!

What’s on the board today? We’ve had an evening with the new Skate now – I refuse to accept the game’s horrible name formatting – so we’ve had time to formulate our thoughts. We also awake to news of more layoffs in the industry, sadly, at Tomb Raider developer Crystal Dynamics, which cites “evolving business difficulties” as the reason why. Beyond that, we continue to plough through our Gamescom backlog to share impressions of the games we saw.

But more to the point, I was just asked a very good question by my partner who said – she mercilessly interrupted my typing – which games am I still looking forward to this year. I’m horrendous at answering questions like this because my mind clears like a flock of pigeons chased by children every time anyone asks – games, what are games? – but I thought you’d know. So allow me to steal your excitement for a moment; which games are you still looking forward to?

The day begins.

Our live coverage of this event has finished.

Coverage
Comments

08:47 am
UTC

Konami acknowledges Metal Gear Solid Delta Snake Eater issues

It’s launch day for Metal Gear Solid Delta Snake Eater, and Konami has acknowledged some teething issues.

These include crashes while wearing the crocodile cap, but sadly nothing on general performance issues noted in some reviews – especially the PS5 Pro version.

If you’ve been thinking of grabbing the remake, check out Connor’s five star review of Metal Gear Solid Delta first!

Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater Review – A MUD-SLICK CLASSIC REBORNWatch on YouTube

Ed Nightingale

08:55 am
UTC

Donlan digs into Skate and interviews the team about it

Image credit: EA

Donlan’s been kickflipping around Skate’s new urban playground of San Vansterdam for us, and once he adjusted to – and ignored – the live-service onslaught, he warmed to it. Much of this has to do with the game’s playful Flick-It system of control, which he talked to the Skate team about.

Flick-It is still effortless fun, allowing you to make even the quietest moment into a few seconds of something cool happening at board level. It’s great for practicing and it’s great for showing off to other players. But, speaking of other players, it’s interesting to me that I’ve spent my most memorable moments so far in this busy game on my own.

Robert Purchese

09:13 am
UTC

Perfect Dark cancellation results in layoffs at Crystal Dynamics

Crystal Dynamics has announced the “difficult decision” to lay off more staff, citing “evolving business conditions”. It added the decision was not made lightly, but was necessary to “ensure the long-term health of our studio and core creative priorities in a continually shifting market”.

This week’s layoffs follow the cancellation of Perfect Dark earlier this year by Microsoft. While the reboot was being helmed by The Initiative, Crystal Dynamics was supporting the project. Tomb Raider remains unaffected.

Crystal Dynamics subject to more layoffs following Perfect Dark cancellation

Victoria Phillips Kennedy

09:14 am
UTC

Gravitas says: I am idly interested in Ghost of Yotei and Outer Worlds 2 but I’m not particularly excited for any games this year. This is partly because of my circumstances and lack of free time for gaming, partly because I have a fully stocked library of games to choose from without buying anything new and partly because the games and IPs that I adore most seem to have withered on the vine. (Deus Ex, Dragon Age, Arkham Batman). I might still be surprised but the last game that came out that really wowed me and felt like it could have been made just for me was Sifu.

Ghost of Yotei and Outer Worlds 2 are good picks! I’m still interested in Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2. My attention is fang-locked on it at the moment. My hunch is it won’t turn out well but I’m still keen to play. Beyond that… That’s where my mind blanks.

Robert Purchese

09:14 am
UTC

Epic CEO blames Unreal Engine 5 issues on developers

Speaking at the Unreal Fest in South Korea recently, Epic CEO Tim Sweeney has blamed performance issues with Unreal Engine 5 on developers.

Plenty of games using the engine have shipped with stuttering and poor frame rates, but Sweeney stated it’s due to the order of development, with studios too focused on high-end tech, rather than the engine itself.

Still, Epic is working on better education, which will certainly help out indies struggling to optimise their games.

Ed Nightingale

09:18 am
UTC

Call of Duty’s U-turn on wacky cosmetics is probably due to Battlefield 6, and that’s a good thing

Yesterday evening we posted an article on Call of Duty’s U-Turn away from wacky cosmetics in the upcoming Black Ops 7, why it’s very likely a response to Battlefield 6 coming in hot, and why that’s ultimately a great thing for regular ‘ol people who just like playing FPS games.

Competition remains a good thing, and being the only horse at the races tends to lead to slopping running. Is that a real saying people use, or just 10AM verbal slop? You decide!

Image credit: Activision

Connor Makar

10:22 am
UTC

Bethesda teases a Starfield space travel update following leaks

Image credit: Eurogamer/Bethesda Softworks

In a recent dev spotlight, Bethesda (via producer Tim Lamb) teased an upcoming update to space travel, which should apparently “make the journeys more rewarding”.

This comes after members of the community mined up some code related to a “cruise mode”, which was quickly patched out by Bethesda after being discovered. Looks like Starfield fans can expect something big in the near future.

Connor Makar

11:20 am
UTC

Final Fantasy 14’s Naoki Yoshida addresses mod usage in the MMORPG

Final Fantasy 14 producer and director Naoki Yoshida has addressed the use of mods in the MMORPG, which has been a contentious issue for a long time.

He’s previously released statements against mod use, but has now given a refresher in a new statement on the game’s Lodestone blog.

Square Enix has asked for media to link to the blog post in full, so check out the link below for a lengthy statement on what is and isn’t allowed.

Ed Nightingale

11:36 am
UTC

How real and unreal collide in Metal Gear Solid

Image credit: Eurogamer

Something has been on Donlan’s mind while playing the recent Metal Gear Solid 3 remaster, and it’s the constant push and pull between what’s real and what’s unreal in the game. In one moment, Kojima’s games seem to show painstaking deference to real life, with detailed injury systems or an intricate animations. But at another moment they’ll delight in the absurd and far fetched. The duality always seems to be there.

The thing that’s so exciting to me about this collision in Metal Gear Solid 3 is that you see it most clearly in the places where the game is possibly trying to play it straight. When it’s not playing it straight, Metal Gear Solid 3 is a riot of unrealism, of course. There’s a boss that controls hornets, if I remember correctly. You fight a boss that controls hornets!

But it’s when the game’s seemingly trying to be real that things get truly odd…

Robert Purchese

11:39 am
UTC

Zombie-Hamster says: Morning all!

Still quite a few games I’m interested in before the end of this year, too many really!

Silent Hill F
Hotel Barcelona
Ghost of Yotei
Little Nightmares 3
Metroid Prime 4
Mouse: P.I. For Hire

That’s a nice list.

Robert Purchese

11:41 am
UTC

2much says: Games I’m still looking forward to this year:

Ninja Gaiden 4
Sonic Racing CrossWorlds
Ghost of Yotei

Plus I’ve got Lost Soul Aside arriving tomorrow
2much adds: Completely forgot about Silent Hill and Metroid when compiling my list! Also Kirby Air Riders I’m fairly interested in, although I’ll certainly be prioritising Sonic. Pretty wild to be getting three AAA kart racers in one year

It is wild to be getting three kart racers this year!

Robert Purchese

11:45 am
UTC

2much says: I’m a bit torn on the technical performance affecting the review thing. Eurogamer reviews tend to be primarily about the reviewer’s experience, wider conversation be damned, and if the performance issues didn’t bother the reviewer then it feels disingenuous to mark it down for that.

There are plenty of all time classics that had or have bad performance, Dark Souls being the one that immediately comes to mind mostly because it’s always on my mind, and if that had gotten a 7/10 for is poor performance, it would have stood out over time as Eurogamer getting it dead wrong.

Metal Gear Solid is a *little* different because it’s a remake, mind.

It’s a tricky one, isn’t it? And I’m not the person to formally answer this by the way – reviews boss Chris Tapsell is but he’s away at the moment. I expect he’ll say something like if a performance issue is significant enough to impact and detract from your experience of the game, then it’s worth talking about. With the caveat of course that a day-one patch might fix it (see Rogueywon’s comment).

On the flip side, I’d personally feel inclined to also mention performance if it was brilliant – if the technical accomplishment of a game was so good it signficantly impacted my experience in a positive way. But that’s just me.

Robert Purchese

11:50 am
UTC

H1ppyDave says: I’m still all in for:

MGSD (arriving tomorrow, boo!)
Silksong
Sonic Crossworld
Borderlands 4
Silent Hill F
Hell is Us
Little Nightmares 3

Going to be a busy few weeks…

Indeed! Good to see some love here for Little Nightmares 3 by the way. That’s a good series, though it’ll be interesting to see how it feels without Tarsier at the helm.

Robert Purchese

12:16 pm
UTC

Ken Levine spills the beans about Judas

Ken Levine has stepped forward out of the shadows to talk a bit about Juadas, the first-person adventure game reveald by Ghost Story Games back in 2022. This comes after a period of radio silence – the game is still alive!

The blog post written by Levien and the team goes into the Villany system at length, with the Bioshock creator writing loving words about the Nemesis system in the Shadow of Mordor games. Still no release date, unfortunately.

Image credit: Ghost Story Games

Connor Makar

13:53 pm
UTC

Pragmata is wonderfully weird and it took time to get right

Image credit: Eurogamer

Pragmata has had a tricky development. Originally announced in 2020 for a 2022 release, Capcom’s game was delayed once before being delayed indefinitely. But now, it’s back. So what’s taken so long?

Alex Donaldson tried to broach the topic with producer Naoto Oyama at Gamescom, but had mixed success. The team didn’t want to dwell on the past, he was told, though he caught the occasional glimpse or allusion to a complicated development as the interview progressed. Snapshots like this: “We’ve worked hard, long years to get something here that people enjoy. And we’re just really glad to see that people are enjoying the game that we put so much time and so much effort into.”

One thing’s for sure, though. Pragmata is back, Pragmata is weird, and it’s shaping up very well indeed.

Robert Purchese

14:40 pm
UTC

If you play one Vampire Survivors clone let it be…

I unashamedly love Vampire Survivors so I’m somewhat protective of it. I don’t like cheap copies. But Karate Survivor, despite the name, is not one of them. It’s based on the same concept of running around while auto-attacking and dodging hordes of enemies, and levelling up and choosing new powers, but it has ideas of its own as well.

It’s based on Kung Fu rather than vampires, and it has a novel sequencing idea whereby you chain together acrobatic kung fu moves in ways that can greatly augment them. All while tumbling around the scenery, kicking the scenery, and smashing bottles and baseball bats on baddies’ heads. It’s good. I wrote about Karate Survivor a while ago when I played it on PC.

I’m writing about it now because it’s released on consoles today – on PlayStation, Switch and Xbox. It’s $6.

Watch on YouTube

Robert Purchese

14:52 pm
UTC

Is Honor’s glitzy new foldable phone any good?

In the market for a new phone? Got £1700 to spare (or pretend you can spare)? Then why not take a look at Honor’s glitzy new foldable phone. Reece has our comprehensive review.

For the £1699.99 asking price, the Honor Magic V5 is an undeniably premium handset that offers some serious competition to both Samsung and Google and continues Honor’s upwards trajectory in providing genuinely compelling phones from a brand you may not have considered before.

Robert Purchese

14:58 pm
UTC

Victoria tries the Yooka-Laylee remaster

Image credit: Playtonic Games

I still can’t spell this game’s name. Youka Laylee. No. Yooka Laylee. No – it has a hyphen. Yooka-Laylee. Got it!

Unfortunately for me and my keyboard, Yooka-Laylee is back – with an even harder to type name. Yooka-Replayee. God. It’s being remastered for current console machines. So is it worth a revisit? Victoria took a look at Gamescom.

The question now is has Playtonic done enough to entice players back to the world of Yooka-Laylee? The team has added more pagies to collect, refined animations and of course made adjustments to its controls, and all of these make for a pleasing package. However, in a time when the likes of Nintendo has just released its bombastic, earth-shattering (quite literally) Donkey Kong Bananza, I am still unsure there is quite enough fresh meat here to allow Yooka-Replaylee to fully stand out from the platforming crowd.

Robert Purchese

15:01 pm
UTC

2much says: Have their been phone reviews on this site before? I would really recommend against buying a folding screen phone. Mine broke within two months and I know several other people who have had similar experiences.

I can’t believe how expensive foldable phones are. However, I won’t deny being interested in them. They’re like futuristic books. But you could buy a computer for that money!

Robert Purchese

15:07 pm
UTC

Archive delve: today’s memory is pure Gamescom

I haven’t got a written article from the archive for you today but a piece of pure magic from Ian instead (Chris Bratt was also involved behind the camera). It comes from Gamescom 2015, a show I was also at, sharing an Airbnb with Chris, Ian and Martin. I loved that Airbnb – so many happy memories! I was wearing a rug like a cape at one point. We had fun.

Anyway. This particular archived memory involves Hideo Kojima’s name being controversially removed from the credits of Metal Gears Solid 5: The Phantom Pain – around the time Kojima left Konami. This seemed like a gross injustice to us so we decided to fix it. One game-stand at a time.

Watch on YouTube

Robert Purchese

15:08 pm
UTC

SomethingOriginal says: If we’re recommending VS clones, can I take this opportunity to point at Deep Rock Galactic Survivors, the Deep Rock series’ take on the genre, which is despicably moreish, and, if you fancy a different slant, Vampire Hunters, which is a FPS approach to the swarm’em up bullet hell thing. Both great, in my humble opinion.

Ooh good shouts! No one has ever described Deep Rock Galactic to me that way, and it’s made me infinitely more interested in it. If only I had some friends to play it with.

Robert Purchese

15:19 pm
UTC

SomethingOriginal says: Hi Bertie, thanks for the highlight – Just to be clear, Deep Rock Galactic Survivors is a top-down, single player game from the same team, not a squad based shooter like its eponymous namesake, so you don’t need any friends for it!

Oh that makes more sense now!

Robert Purchese

15:25 pm
UTC

“The fact is I wish we didn’t have to do things like Secure Boot”

Image credit: Eurogamer

Battlefield 6 is big news at the moment. The open beta seems to have been really popular, and it’s nice for Call of Duty to have some meaningful competition again. But one thing players – myself included – didn’t like about Battlefield 6 was how invasive its anti-cheat solution was. It required you to give kernel-level access to EA Dice in order for the game to recognise any deep-level tampering on your machine.

Connor’s been talking to EA Dice about it.

“The fact is I wish we didn’t have to do things like Secure Boot” Buhl admits. “It does prevent some players from playing the game. Some people’s PCs can’t handle it and they can’t play: that really sucks. I wish everyone could play the game with low friction and not have to do these sorts of things.”

Robert Purchese

15:55 pm
UTC

Dark Pictures apparently needed a merch store

I’ll admit to finding the Dark Pictures games a guilty pleasure, but I’m not sure they warranted having a merch store. Neverthelesss, they’ve got one. There are uninspiring T-shirts and hoodies there, and an awful-looking pillow [it’s not a pillow, Bertie, it’s a sticker collection], but also some appealing merchandisables too. That’s a word, right?

The slasher-style horror posters for each of the Dark Pictures games look great. And look at this diorama of the creepy Curator chap who’s in every Dark Pictures game: I’d buy that! How much is it? £89. Maybe not.

Image credit: Dark Pictures Store

Robert Purchese

16:09 pm
UTC

Even a crap Bond film has something about it

Image credit: Warner / Amazon MGM

They’re not my words but Alex Donaldson’s! He who has been writing about James Bond again. He accidentally bumped into Never Say Never Again while flicking through the channels on TV – something no one ever does any more, apart from Alex. And there was Connery. Alex was sucked in.

It’s an incredible time capsule. I think it represents a few different moments in time. Never Say Never Again released in the wake of Star Wars and just a year after Tron. Gaming was enormous, even though the great industry crash was imminent. At the time this was made science fiction and video games were in vogue. It also obviously serves a purpose in transforming Thunderball too, as these scenes take on a completely different vibe despite serving an identical story purpose.

Robert Purchese

16:22 pm
UTC

Elden Ring Nightreign is getting a high-difficulty mode

Image credit: FromSoft

Just in case Elden Ring Nightreign wasn’t challening enough for you, or you’ve played it so much you’ve worn all of its jagged edges smooth, like the sea does a stone, then Bandai Namco and FromSoftware have just the update for you: a high-difficulty mode.

It’s known as Deep of Night and it’s due 11th September.

Robert Purchese

16:25 pm
UTC

MarcusJ says: Re: Bond films. We recently watched the full run here from Dr. No to whatever the most recent one was, and enjoyed them, by and large. There’s something not quite right about watching a Bond film without nine commercial breaks and a half hour intermission for the news though.

Haha! The news intermission: I’d totally forgotten about that. Isn’t it weird how watching things on streaming services, particularly those linked to traditional broadcasters like BBC or ITV, now pipe-in advert breaks in the same way? It’s a full-circle moment. I noticed it recently while watching… No, I won’t say. You can’t make me.

Love Island. There, I’ve said it. I hope you’re happy.

Robert Purchese

16:27 pm
UTC

That’s it for today folks! Thanks for joining us. See you tomorrow? I’ll bring snacks. Mikado chocolate sticks, if you’re asking.

Robert Purchese

Source link

August 31, 2025 0 comments

Game Updates

Crystal Dynamics subject to more layoffs following Perfect Dark cancellation

by admin August 30, 2025

In a post shared on LinkedIn, the studio thanked those impacted by these layoffs for their “hard work, talent and passion”, stating Crystal Dynamics is “committed to offering the full extent of support and resources at our disposal during this transition”.

Manage cookie settings

It went on to additionally thank the rest of its team, as well as its community and partners for the “continued support” as the studio builds a “creative, sustainable, and resilient tomorrow together”.

The next entry in the Tomb Raider series – which is being developed in collaboration with Amazon – is not affected by these most recent layoffs at Crystal Dynamics.

This week’s layoffs follow the cancellation of Perfect Dark earlier this year by Microsoft. While the reboot was being helmed by The Initiative, Crystal Dynamics was supporting the project.

Well this is it. I was let go from Crystal Dynamics as Perfect Dark was cancelled. I am now out of a job. I genuinely dont know what to do at this moment but to frantically apply for as many jobs that are applicable. If anyone needs a Senior Environment Artist of 10+ years, please let me know.

— Maja Öberg (@majaoeberg.bsky.social) August 27, 2025 at 6:04 PM

Manage cookie settings

The studio previously laid off 17 staff members in March of this year. At this time, Crystal Dynamics said this was “necessary to better align our current business needs and the studio’s future success”, and was “not a reflection of the dedication or ability of those affected”.

This is a news-in-brief story. This is part of our vision to bring you all the big news as part of a daily live report.

Source link

August 30, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

A Dark Money Group Is Secretly Funding High-Profile Democratic Influencers

by admin August 27, 2025

“I’ve spent most of my career researching right-wing media and sounding the alarms about the collapse of our old information environment,” Ellie Langford, the director of programming at Chorus, said on a Zoom call with dozens of creators in June. “Our political systems haven’t been able to figure out a real solution, and I’ve been really excited to see you all treading the path forward. I deeply, deeply believe that the work you all are doing is what’s going to make the difference in supporting and frankly resuscitating our democracy.”

Already, creators in the program are creating content together. In a new weekly series titled “Good News in Politics,” six creators in the program shared a collaborative video running through political wins. “Follow these creators bringing you hope instead of doomscrolling: @sander_jennings, @eorlins, @jesscraven101, @tono.latino, @gemma_talks, @thezactivist,” they posted.

While some creators have been eager to work with Chorus, others distrust the organization. This spring, Chorus faced a wave of backlash from prominent content creators whose images were included in the firm’s fundraising decks without permission. “I was included on some [of Chorus’] decks like, ‘We have access to V,’ when you do not,” said V Spehar, a liberal content creator with over 3.5 million followers on TikTok.

The faces of several well-known influencers were featured prominently on the Chorus website beneath a giant DONATE button. However, users who clicked the button were taken to a fundraising page for Chorus instead of anywhere their dollars would go directly to the creators featured.

Progressive YouTuber and former Media Matters staffer Kat Abughazaleh, who’s running for Congress in Illinois, was pictured on Chorus’ website and included in fundraising decks without her consent. She asked that her image and name be removed and no longer used for fundraising purposes.

Spehar and other content creators have accused Chorus of attempting to establish themselves as a gatekeeper to Democratic political leaders. “What we need is for people to invest in independent media, and that doesn’t necessarily mean investing in a consulting group that is going to become a middleman for independent media,” says Spehar.

Several influencers who doggedly defended Chorus throughout that controversy, including Elizabeth Booker Houston, a Democratic comedian and content creator on Instagram, and Allie O’Brien, a progressive creator with more than 600,000 followers on TikTok, were involved in membership talks for the highest-paid tier in Chorus’ new creator incubator program. (Houston did not respond to requests for comment; O’Brien declined to comment.)

Still, some creators heard about The Sixteen Thirty Fund and Chorus funding initiative and applied to join.

One creator named Chesko, who goes by @thespeechprof online, applied to join the program because he viewed it as an “opportunity to get access to people that have funding or backing and actual research that I could use,” he says.

Ultimately, he wasn’t accepted and received an email on June 26 rejecting his application. “We are planning to bring more creators into the Incubator program in the near future,” Chorus wrote.

Source link

August 27, 2025 0 comments

Product Reviews

A Physicist Wants to Turn Jupiter’s Largest Moon Into a Gigantic Dark Matter Detector

by admin August 24, 2025

When searching for the unknown, classic physics wisdom holds that a bigger detector boosts the chances of discovery. A physicist is taking that advice to heart, advancing a bold plan to use none other than Ganymede—Jupiter’s largest moon—as a dark matter detector on an astronomical scale.

Dark matter refers to the “invisible” mass that supposedly constitutes 85% of the universe. There’s considerable evidence that dark matter exists, but it’s “dark,” meaning it doesn’t respond to light and very weakly interacts with other matter. The search for dark matter has tested the limits of physicists’ creativity, but a proposal by William DeRocco, a physicist at the University of Maryland, may be the most extraordinary yet. In a preprint submitted to arXiv, Rocco suggests that Ganymede’s craters may store evidence of dark matter particles, which spacecraft like NASA’s Europa Clipper or ESA’s JUICE could observe during their respective missions.

The paper, which has yet to be peer-reviewed, proposes that massive dark matter particles could have struck and penetrated Ganymede’s thick, icy surface, leaving deep, broad ruptures. Unlike the comparatively small-sized candidates for dark matter that ground-based detectors are searching for, these particles would be much larger. These extra-large dark matter particles would create “dark matter craters”—smaller dents on Ganymede’s surface comprised of distinctive minerals pulled to the surface from deep inside the moon’s oceans.

“If you used something like ground-penetrating radar, you might be able to see this column of melted ice going all the way down through the ice,” DeRocco explained in an interview with New Scientist. Studying Ganymede’s surface with this proposal in mind could uncover some unexpected insights about cosmic dark matter, according to the paper.

In principle, the proposal sounds promising, Bradley Kavanaugh, an astrophysicist at the University of Cantabria in Spain who was not involved in the study, also told New Scientist. At the same time—like all dark matter experiments—there is still no definitive evidence that such heavy, massive dark matter particles actually exist.

If all of this sounds bonkers, I don’t blame you. Still, it’s important to remember that, as many physicists are keen to point out, solving a physics mystery often means testing bold, unconventional ideas. And while there’s no decisive evidence that this particular proposal is correct, there isn’t any evidence to discount it, either. We’ll have to wait and see if NASA or ESA takes up DeRocco’s idea, and if they do, whether Ganymede really does have a surface dotted with dark matter craters.

Source link

August 24, 2025 0 comments